The New York Times reports that the worldwide popularity of Downton Abbey stretches beyond the Anglosphere to “Sweden, Russia, South Korea, the Middle East and dozens of other locales where viewers wouldn’t know a dowager from a dogsbody.”

We must be well into production of Mad Men, because the pre-season questions about the premiere date crop up. Now there are quotes attributed to John Slattery, which are non-specific. What has been announced in Mad Men press releases is that John Slattery will be directing 2 Season 6 episodes and Jon Hamm will direct one, meaning principal photography will last until early March.

Given Slattery’s long working relationship with MW, why would any sane reporter expect a candid answer. When AMC and MW want to get specific as to premiere date and time they will.

Also, this is the time in pre-season when questions about Christina Hendricks’ hair get asked. The current tale of woe is that at some point an unnamed modeling agency ordered her to go blonde. Who know, that could be true, or not.

Way back, when CH was not much beyond being a teenager, she started acting on ‘Firefly’ and at about the same time on the second season of a series filmed in Vancouver, ‘Beggars & Choosers’. At that time and for severed CH series subsequently, the story from her publicist was that her mother went red at the time CH was about 10. CH liked that look, so her mother allowed CH to go red. Then in her mid teens CH went goth. In none of those pre-2013 CH press releases or quotes was there any mention of a modeling agency calling her red hair ugly.

Of course such things happen, so all of those press releases could be partially true.

What is important is that Christine Hendricks is so comfortable in her beautiful body now and is happy.

Yes, besides Matt Weiner Jon Hamm also said in interviews that Mad Men Season 6 would start in March 2013. Just after Season 5 ended its run in 2012, MW stated that although principal photography of Season 6 would start later in the year than usual, so that it would continue to March 2013, he planned to use the system which worked well the first 4 seasons: Post production would start for each episode when it was filmed, so that some episodes would be ready for AMC as early as late January 2013.

However, AMC has no open spot on the Sunday schedule until 31 March 2013. The cable industry consensus is that because of intense competition on 31 March it is more realistic that AMC would prefer to launch Season 6 on the following Sunday, 7 April and probably with a 2 hour double episode, like Season 5.

Of course if none of this happens, it would hardly be the first time in history the consensus of the cable TV industry was mistaken.

I thought I had read somewhere (linked from here, I’m sure) about a month ago that someone (Jon Hamm, I think) had leaked March 31 as the season 6 return date. And I just read last week that Aaron Paul had leaked July 14 as the Breaking Bad return date. That doesn’t leave a very long window for a 13-week MM season. Could be April 7, with a week off between them in July, I suppose. Or it could be like last season with first (or last?) week being a 2-hour double episode so only 12 Sundays needed and it could start even a week after that. But I think March 31 is still most likely, with April 7 possible.